Infants often suffer from neonatal jaundice, skin conditions, such as psoriasis, difficulty breathing when their lungs have not fully developed, and respiratory distress. These conditions are treatable. Neonatal jaundice and some skin conditions, such as psoriasis, are successfully treated with phototherapy treatment. Ventilation therapy, such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, is useful to treat infants whose lungs have not fully developed. Nasal ventilation with a nasal cannula is useful to treat respiratory distress.
Phototherapy treatment is harmful to the eyes. Accordingly, the eyes of an infant must be shielded from the therapeutic light, such as with protective masks. Administration of ventilation therapy with CPAP devices and nasal cannulas requires that devices be held in place relative to the face of the infant to ensure the ventilation therapy is properly administered. Infants often become agitated when equipment is applied to their faces, and routinely claw and pull protective eye masks and ventilation equipment away from their faces during therapy treatments. To address the problem, there is a need in the art for infant headgear that is useful not only for operatively anchoring protective eye masks and ventilation equipment and the like relative to the face of an infant in the application of phototherapy and ventilation therapy and the like, but also for calming the infant during therapy sessions and making it difficult for the infant to remove such therapeutic accessories from their faces.